Major attempt at accuracy, sourcing a massive number of real planes (100) and cost a lot of money to make. Has some inaccuracies, using Composite Characters and over-emphasising the Spitfire's role due to a lack of available Hurricanes. A number of names are fictionalised.

Contains examples of:

Abandon Ship: Numerous men are shown bailing out of their crippled fighters and bombers through the film. Just as many are shown desperately trying to do so and failing, including one very long drawn out wide shot of a British fighter diving out of the sky trailing smoke, the pilot struggling to open his canopy, before we see the distant explosion as it hits the ground.

Ace Pilot: To be expected in a film about aerial warfare; both sides have some of these. Colin Harvey and "Skipper" fit the stereotype best (in terms of looks and manner), but any named character with pilot's wings who isn't dead by the end of the film is at least an honourary example.

America Saves the Day: Averted, as the entire film takes place before America's entry into the war. That said, the (neutral) Americans spend the entire film just Out of Focus, with the Brits trying to wrangle various support from them while the Germans try to convince them that Britain is on the ropes.

Battle Couple: Deconstructed. In fact, quite possibly an Unbuilt Trope in this film: Colin is entirely opposed to Maggie serving in uniform at all, as he'd rather she stay at home where it's safe. Maggie meanwhile feels driven by duty and tries to get her husband to understand why she insists. The war is a source of constant stress and fuel for conflict in their marriage.

Blatant Lies: A radio announcement stating that 'several RAF Aerodromes were also attacked, and some casualties were sustained, but they were light'... playing over a shot of the smouldering ruins of one of said aerodromes.

The Cavalry: Inverted and Averted early in the film. Air Chief Marshal Dowding's introduction is a monologue explaining why the RAF cannot afford to help the French any further.

Eagle Squadron: Most notably, the Polish, Czech and Canadian pilots fighting for the Royal Air Force, but the credits include a list of different nations whose pilots fought for Britain during the titular battle.

As a point of trivia, the Trope Namer, the three Eagle Squadrons of American volunteers that served in the RAF, do not appear in this film because those squadrons did not become operational until after the battle.

Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Robert Shaw's character is known to the audience only as "Skipper" (his men's nickname for him) and "Rabbit Leader" (his callsign).

Fighter-Launching Sequence: Obviously. Air Vice Marshal Park frequently complains that the fighters don't take off quickly enough to stop the German bombers before they reach their targets.

Skipper: (As their airfield is under German air attack) Well don't just stand there! Get one up!

Foreshadowing: Harvey meets an RAF officer who had been burned badly and is visibly put off by it. Her husband ends up caught in a burning Spitfire in the next battle sequence. He escapes, but is badly burned.

Home Guard: Of the Torches and Pitchforks variety, showing how desparate Britain's situation is during this campaign. Also, after their radar stations are hit, the RAF is left to rely on the Observer Corps to spot the bombers visually and report in.

Hypocritical Humor: Group Captain Baker is in the middle of lecturing Maggie Harvey about how the practice of male and female personnel sharing the same trenches during air raid drills has got to stop. He is interrupted by the onset of a German raid on their base, and he and Maggie both dive into the nearest trench.

Maggie Harvey herself has a bit of this after a raid herself. She shakily pulls out a cigarette and is shouted at by a male officer because the raid blew a gas main open, and that cigarette would ignite the leak. In response, she briefly loses her Stiff Upper Lip.

Don't you yell at me, Mr. Warrick!

Just Plane Wrong: There are a number of inaccuracies in that department, although they made quite an effort to avoid this as far as possible. One particularly notable instance is in sequences with groups of Hurricanes on approach Bf 109s stand in for more Hurricanes in the background, leading to the entertaining fact that they're basically heading into battle with enemies on their tail.

There is another little fun bit of this, although very slight - The Spanish HA-1112s and CASA 2.111s (license-built versions of the Bf-109 and He-111 respectively) used for the film were powered by Rolls Royce Merlin engines and easily distinguishable from their German counterparts by the bulky air-intake under the engine. So the vast majority of planes in the movie - on both sides - used the same engine.

Crash scenes and unavailable aircraft (such as the Ju-87 Stuka of which no flying examples exist) were done using large-scale radio-controlled models.

Language Barrier: 303 Squadron is manned by Polish expatriates. They are very enthusiastic, but are unable to communicate effectively with their English comrades. After being mistaken for a German and taken prisoner, Hogs can be seen studying a Polish-English Dictionary late in the film.

Men Are the Expendable Gender: Averted. Bombers do not distinguish between gender, and a number of WRAF ground personnel are killed in raids on British bases. Not to mention the civilians, including women and children, when London is bombed.

New Meat: Several replacement pilots. Most get killed off fairly quickly (one on his first sortie) Only one lives long enough to become a Shell-Shocked Veteran, he and one of two newbies who arrived just before the last big battle sequence are the only ones who survive the whole film.

Seemingly played straight by Colin Harvey, who doesn't sound British at all... but if you look at his uniform carefully, it is revealed that he's actually Canadian (a change requested by his actor Christopher Plummer). This is never brought up in dialogue.

Not So Different: British and German forces alike are shown to partake in good-natured joking around and sharing of advice between missions.

Off-the-Shelf FX: A lot of scenes were very clever editing involving cutting between studio sets, live-action footage of preserved 1940-era warplanes, and FX iunvolving virtually off-the-shelf models of the Airfix type. Even in 1969, there simply were not enough preserved WW2-era aircraft to have live footage of massed German and British aircraft in the sort of numbers that would have fought over southern England in 1940. Scenes of lots and lots of German bombers in formation were done as model shots, using off-the shelf Airfix kits note Even in 1969, other manufactueers were available. But Airfix were nearest and most ubiquitous. of German aircraft. The kit-bashing element involved adapting the completed models to take small electric motors and batteries so that the airscrews moved authentically. Pyrotechnics were built into some models, which were adapted to break up in ways that would have been realistic for real aircraft and not for plastic kits, whose parts and assembly do not usually correspond to the way in which real aircraft are built and how they deconstruct if catastrophic breaking stresses are applied. note ie, when they are shot down or sustain critical damage in flight.

Shown Their Work: the production company rounded up every flyable Spitfire and Hurricane they could, and simulated the Luftwaffe by using Spanish copies of the Me-109 and He-111 built under license.

Doing It for the Art: in an early scene, a Hurricane does a victory roll, and the engine sputters while the plane is inverted. The early war Spitfires and Hurricanes used a gravity-fed carburetor, and would actually stall out if flown inverted for too long. Indeed, this is exactly the reason cited by Harvey when he chews out the pilot for the maneuver later.

Sitting Duck: Throughout the early part of the movie, many British planes fail to get off the ground before being shot up by the Luftwaffe.

Indeed, an early scene has an airfield in France in the midst of being abandoned. The planes that aren't able to fly out on their own are doused in gasoline so the Brits can destroy them and keep them out of German hands. The Germans just happen to show up on cue to shoot up the now highly-flammable planes.

Stiff Upper Lip: The British (obviously), but the German pilots display this as well.

Stuff Blowing Up: Both sides' aeroplanes tend to explode spectacularly when hit. This is because a) real airplanes are full of gasoline and b) given the special effects techniques available at the time the only practical way to show a real airplane being destroyed in flight was to matte an explosion over it in post production. The model shots avoid this, naturally.

Translation Convention: One of the first World War II films to avert this. The British, French, Germans and even the Poles speak their own language. The latter is actually a Plot Point, as problems created by the language barrier between Polish volunteers and their RAF commanders were fully Truth in Television. Non-English dialogue is not subtitled whenever the context makes it unnecessary.

It also comes up when a Polish pilot is shot down, bails out and lands in a field - where the farmers mistake him for a German pilot because of his accent.

In the scene where they parachute into the church, one of the women asks (in French) if they are Angels, which is not subtitled at all, but is very emotional if you understood what she said.

Unreliable Narrator: The BBC broadcasts heard throughout the film, occasionally giving a somewhat... softer reporting of the events that we have just seen.

Vomit Discretion Shot: At the end of the film, Dispersal's phone rings (which throughout the film has had a 50/50 chance of meaning a Scramble). Turns out that this time it just means the tea is ready. One Ensign Newbie is polite enough to step outside before leaning over to nervously puke.

War Is Hell: German and British pilots alike meet very unpleasant ends. One of the main characters is last seen trying to bail out of a plane whlie his cockpit is engulfed in flames. We are told later that he bailed out and survived, but suffered severe burns over most of his body. The aftermath of one air raid includes a row of dead Women's Auxiliary Air Force personnel covered by a tarp. Another scene shows that a church hall full of civilians (including the family of one of the main characters) shown in a previous scene has suffered a direct hit. By the end of the film, German and British pilots alike are shown to be badly strung out, the British units full of nervous newbies (most of the experienced pilots having been shot down by now) and the German units shown to be badly thinned by attrition (not receiving replacements as quickly as the Britons are).

We Used to Be Friends: The British and German ambassadors in Switzerland. Judging by how the British ambassador's wife greets the German ambassador, it's clear that they used to be on much better terms before the war.

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